Thursday, 10 July 2014

Granny Square & Beyond

Hi everyone.
Have I told you that I coordinate a craft group at the local Neighbourhood Centre. The group meets on Friday afternoons and is open to anyone to come along with their craft and spend time with other crafty people.
Over the few years it has been running it has become mainly a patchwork group. I come with ideas or design projects that everyone can do, if they want, or they can do their own thing.
For a while one of the regulars, Sally, who is an experienced patchworker, has been bringing her knitting instead. She mentioned a few weeks ago that she loves crochet (particularly Granny rugs) but that she had tried to learn several times and for some reason she just couldn't do it. Well that sounded like a challenge worth taking on so I convinced her that I could/would teach her to crochet. With that a few of the other ladies piped up that they would like to learn or relearn too. Soit was agreed we would do some crochet lessons and learn how to make a traditional Granny square.

I like to have sample to show everyone when I'm teaching but the thing is I have never crocheted a traditional Granny square rug.

I have crocheted rugs made of squares.

I started this rug when I was 15 and finished it for my first baby at 22

And I've crochet quite a few other rugs.
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A couple of hexagon rugs

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A Bavarian or wool eater rug﻿

African flower rug, a WIP

But not a traditional Granny rug.

So I drag out the wool and crochet hook and start cranking out Granny squares.

and then crocheting them together.

This is the first time I have crocheted squares together instead of sewing them, and if you notice in the photo the squares are little out of alignment. I would love to know if this is what usually happens or if I'm doing something wrong, so if anyone out there knows I would appreciate some advice. Anyway I'm not letting it worry me too much as it's going to be a snuggle rug not a show piece.

At the moment the rug is 9 squares by 9 squares and I think I'll make it 10 by 10. I'm loving the way it's coming along, the colours look so bright and cheery against the black and it seems to be saying "come snuggle". I don't know why I haven't made one before, probably because I usually like to do something different from the norm.

Anyway enough about my rug and back to the craft group ladies. They have really enjoyed the few weeks learning to crochet. Some have even been inspired to go beyond the Granny square and learn other patterns.

These are Sally's Granny squares (50+) and just waiting to get a wool order so she can do the borders and crochet them together. So as you can see she has mastered the crochet hook.

Sally brought in this rug that her Grandmother crocheted about 80 years ago. It has seen better days and is beyond repair but I have worked out the pattern for the block so Sally can make one like it.

One of our experienced crocheters, Lyn, who has helped with teaching, brought in some of her crochet for show and tell.

This rug she crocheted for her Mum.

And this one someone else started and she finished.

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She also brought in these beautiful hand embroidered doileys with fine crocheted edges that her Grandmother made.

Unfortunately I have only remembered to take these few of photos but I'm hoping to take some more in the next few weeks as the Granny rugs come together. Stay tuned.
I've also been working on another small project but I'll leave that for another post. Here's a little sneak peak.

I'm off to Garden Group today, the theme is 'What's Flowering in July" so I'll be back with a post about that too.

Until next time

TOODLES

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